Bananas don’t grow on trees. They grow on a stalk that looks just a little like a stalk of corn. The stalk is soft enough to be cut with a knife.  It takes about a year before bananas are ready to be picked. Some are as small as fingers. Others are as long as men’s arms. Some banana plants grow as tall as a house – even taller! Not all bananas are eaten as fruit. Some never get sweet, and they are cooked as a kind of vegetable. People in most countries never see a banana until it reaches the store. But if you visited a country where it’s hot and rains a lot all the year, you might see a banana plantation, a large farm where bananas grow. The tasty fruit doesn’t come from a seed but from a root planted deep in the ground. First a stalk pushes up into the air. The leaves grow. In the beginning the banana plant grows very fast – sometimes as much as the length of your feet in one night. Soon, sweet-smelling flowers come out, and when their flowers drop off, bananas begin to grow. As they get bigger, bananas start turning up. It looks as if they’re growing upside down! Bananas are ready to eat when they turn soft and yellow. Bananas are picked long before this – when they’re hard and green. This is because bananas have to travel many miles before they arrive at a store. On trucks and boats and trains bananas travel all over the world. There are special boats just for bananas and special trains that keep them just cool enough so that they will get ripe while traveling. If bananas are picked when they are ripe (成熟的), they will spoil on the way. 小题1:What’s the weather like in places where bananas grow?
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